Sunday, February 28, 2010

Reserve your FREE tickets now to Spotlight Night, online, over the phone at 206-625-1900 or in person at the box office.

Monday, March 22 at 7pm

Spotlight Night on On The Town & Candide

The final Spotlight Night of our 2009-2010 season will take you behind the scenes oftwo of “the greatest musicals you’ve never seen” -- On The Town and Candide, as well as preview this spring’s exciting Seattle Celebrates Bernstein Festival

Act 1

Seattle Celebrates Bernstein!

Over the next four months an unprecedented consortium of 19 of the region’s leading arts organization with join forces to celebrate the life and music of legendary American composer Leonard Bernstein. David Armstrong will provide a sneak peek of the incredible potpourri of concerts, theatrical performances, lectures, film screenings and special events that will make up this unique, first-of-its-kind citywide arts festival.

Act 2

The Best Of All Possible Worlds: Bernstein On Broadway

In this music-filled segment a host of our Seattle’s finest singers will help us review the life and glorious songs of Leonard Bernstein – featuring selections from his legendary Broadway musicals and other theatrical works including West Side Story, Wonderful Town, Trouble In Tahiti, Mass, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, On The Town and Candide. With musical performances by Greg Allen, Anne Allgood, Candice Donehoo, Mary Jo DuGaw, Brandon O’Neill, Matt Owen, Sarah Rudinoff, Billie Wildrick and guest artists Laura Griffith, Joe Aaron Reid and the Seattle Woman’s Chorus.

Act 3

I Can Cook Too: Serving Classic Musicals To A Modern Audience

Candide’s director, David Armstrong, and On The Town’s director and musical director, Bill Berry and Ian Eisendrath, will give you an inside look at how they approach the challenges and rewards of whipping up classic “Golden Age Of Broadway” musicals to meet the taste of a contemporary audience.

Check out this great video to see interview with Becky Gulsvig (Elle) and Roxie (Bruiser understudy) on King 5 TV. The dogs in the show were rescued and are trained and owned by Bill Berloni who trained the original Sandy in Annie.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

First of all - Denver's cool! (Figuratively and literally - the first snow I've seen all winter - finally!) Neat city, good vibe, but the altitude does some pretty funny things to people. I was lucky in that I got a week of hanging out in the city rehearsing before having to actually do the show, so I had more time to acclimate. But with less oxygen around, there are definitely some extra challenges to singing, dancing, jumping rope, and sleeping.

That said, the show goes on, and the Denver audiences LOVE it - I watched it a few more times here and people have so much fun at this show. It's nice to see first hand the effect this show has on people. It makes it very exciting to start.

Oh, and did I mention that my first performance will also be the first performance of Michael Rupert as Callahan? If the name doesn't ring a bell, Michael, who won a Tony in the revival of Sweet Charity, originated the role of Professor Callahan on Broadway. So, while he and I are the "new guys," he's a step or two ahead of me. Ha!

I continued rehearsals in Denver, and started to get a little anxious to go on. And I thought I might go in early for a while, as the cast was dealing with a little round of injuries. In fact, I don't think there was one show the first week in Denver that had the same configuration of cast members. Keeps things interesting!

Alas, didn't get to go on early - but now I only had two days to wait!

My first week was spent rehearsing during the days, watching the shows during the evening, and going out at night with the cast to meet everyone and start putting names to faces.

I spent the days with one of the dance captains who taught me the show either on stage or in the theatre lobby if the stage was being used. This is one area where an actor's imagination is very helpful, because although you're on a bare stage, you have to envision as many as twenty other people, where they are, and where they're going. Not an easy task, but luckily, a good dance captain (like the ones we have) can tell you exactly where each of those people are and your relationship to them - which I always find impressive.

It's a pretty quick and dirty process in a situation like this. I had one session with the music director to "learn" the music, where we basically went through every song once, or twice if necessary. He gave me all the specifics, like cut-offs/dynamics/etc. and from that day on, I was just expected to have it down. Similarly, we got through the staging of the show in about two days, and the next day, it was time to run the show. Luckily, I had taken the time to do my homework at the hotel, and had also paid close attention while watching the show, so this went pretty smoothly.

At the end of the week, I was pretty confident in what I'd learned, and felt that if there was an emergency, I could go on early if they needed me to (which apparently is more common than not). Interestingly, we then had the layoff week, so it was back to Seattle for a week. This was a blessing and a curse: great to be home for a week, but I also had to make sure to retain on my own everything that had been crammed into my head in the last 6 days.

The Love Markets are a Weimar Berlin-inspired band who play “songs of the past and future”, interweaving vintage Weimar cabaret songs with new songs written in the Weimar spirit. The band is fronted by Angie Louise and Nick Garrison, each a longtime presence in Seattle theatre and cabaret; together, the two chanteuses confront and seduce with an array of songs about love, art, politics, and whores. Louise writes songs and plays keys; other musicians are Earshot Jazz award-winner Dave Marriott on trombone, Rob Witmer of “Awesome” on accordion, and perennial 5th Avenue Theatre musicians Dave Pascal (bass) and Chris Monroe (drums).

The Love Markets were hatched in a hot tub in San Jose during The 5th Avenue Theatre’s 2008 touring production of Cabaret. A seed was planted as cast members Garrison and Louise shared whiskey and chocolate with their Kit Kat Klub Band; a month later the Love Markets debuted at Town Hall, and a mutant child was born. Clad in military lingerie, the Love Markets manage to be simultaneously decadent, subversive, stylish and absurd - highbrow enough to tackle Kurt Weill and Hans Eisler, but lowbrow enough to pelt the crowd with Slim Jims amidst a risque duet about wiener schnitzel. The world of Weimar Berlin wouldn’t have batted an eye.

PRESS FOR THE LOVE MARKETS’ ANGIE LOUISE AND NICK GARRISON

“Angie Louise has a rich voice and powerful pipes, and she handles comedy and near-tragicdownfall with equal dexterity… Nick Garrison knows his German decadence.” - Seattle Times

“Nick Garrison is a pocket-sized Piaf, with outsized charisma and a chameleon’s ability tobecome any song he sings… A voice like a Chet Baker trumpet.” – Seattle Metropolitan Magazine

“Louise caresses you one moment, and then wham! socks it to you, showing an emotionalrange most performers shy away from. Her incredible instrument takes flight and you aretransported… Nick Garrison is a superstar performer.” - Seattle Gay News

“Garrison’s got subversive presence… He spontaneously combusts when he interacts with theaudience.” – Seattle Weekly / “I now worship at the altar of Angie Louise.” –TheatreSeattle.com

Thursday, February 11, 2010

I left on a rare sunny Seattle Tuesday morning, and headed for an overcast drizzly Tucson, Arizona - how's that for ironic? I had the luxury of only packing for six days to start because the second week of my contract was a layoff week: back home - yay!

I got there just in time for the weekly company meeting (first day in each new city) where they go over any specificities of the theatre, hotels, and the city. The theatres vary greatly in size and space week to week, so sometimes there are backstage traffic changes or even some cut set pieces in very small spaces.

Also, at this particular meeting, I was a point of order as they officially introduced me to everyone ("Jason, meet 75 people - Go!"). Stage management made sure to connect me with Nick, who I was to replace. He was very welcoming and gracious, insisting I let him know if I had any questions or needed anything.

After that, we also do a sound check before the first show in each city, so I got to watch and listen to that. They do almost half of the music in the show while they try to nail down the mix in the new space.

Then, I got my comp ticket (front and center) to that night's show, found my seat, and had my first second to stop and think about where I was and what I was doing.

Midway through the first number of the show, the girls sing "Oh my God, this is happening..." and I said to myself "Yeah it is."

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

How I Got the Job - Part 2: Keeping the Faithor "You Gotta Fight to be Legally Blonde"For Part 1, click here.

After the summer, I had a couple months off before my next project, which was playing John Truitt in Meet Me in St. Louis at Village Theatre. As I had no idea when, or really… IF a call would come for Legally Blonde The Musical, I moved on with things as usual in Seattle, while at the same time trying to put myself in a good position to get the job whenever the call came. This meant familiarizing myself with the show, continuing my training, and getting whipped into the best shape possible. You’ll see when the show gets to Seattle - these boys are FIT.

The call did eventually come, though not for a while. It was early December, midway through the run of St. Louis, when they called and said they wanted me to come to New York in about four weeks. This was actually much more advance notice than I had expected, so that was nice).

And as luck would have it, they wanted me to come in right in the middle of a three day break from St. Louis, so I didn’t even have to deal with a conflict I started to feel at that point that perhaps some stars were aligning for this.

So my wife and I got two cheap plane tickets (yay!) to New York and took a mini business/leisure trip. I realized before the audition that Jerry Mitchell would not be able to be there as he was in the middle of putting up Legally Blonde on London’s West End (which has now gone over as a huge hit and is already extended into 2011!). So I sent him a message, told him I was excited for the opportunity, and thanked him for calling me in. He responded and said he would make sure to give a call to the folks doing the casting and put his two cents in. Now, considering that Jerry’s two cents is more like the whole dollar, this was an exciting thing to hear. The producer, Hal Luftig, who also produced Catch Me, who you may have seen at Spotlight Night, also said he would speak on my behalf: Woah.

A couple days before the audition, I got a call from the casting agency, Telsey & Co., asking if I could come in an hour before my appointment to have a private session with Justin, the casting director. Justin and I had become friends over the summer and fall, and he wanted me to get a chance to run through the material in the room before the team showed up – awesome! That portion went very smoothly, and helped reduce my nerves for the real thing. Consequently, the real thing went very well. Part of the job is covering (or understudying) the role of Warner, so they had me sing his song, “Serious,” and also read a scene from act two. They said things like “That was great!” “Thanks Jason” “Really good.” which in truth, are pretty standard responses, but there did seem to be a tone of sincerity to their compliments, so I felt good. I was asked to come back for the dance call, so I knew things were going well so far.

I hung out around Times Square for a couple hours and then returned for the dance call. I hadn’t had a good sense yet of how many other guys were called in for this spot, but however many they started with, there were seven of us total at the dance call. Not the best odds in the world, but again, I felt like I might have a slight cosmic edge, so I was going in with a good amount of confidence.

We did a short combination from “What You Want,” one of the big dance numbers in the first act. This was brief as they just wanted to get a sense of how everyone moved. The real test was to follow. This particular track we were auditioning for involved a heavy dose of jumping rope (yes, jumping rope). There is a number in the show that is basically a live workout video, and there are four guys who do a whole jump rope routine. So we proceeded to jump rope for over an hour: Woah. Not knowing we were going to be doing that, and therefore not being fully stretched or prepared, I ended up straining my left calf, which luckily was completely healed by the time I joined the tour! This was a unique audition challenge, but luckily I had done a good bit of jumping rope in college (thank you, Fight Class!).

We finished up, and everyone chatted a little in the lobby as we got our stuff together to leave. I was completely exhausted, physically and mentally, and walked back up to Times Square, where I just sort of wandered for a little bit, taking in the city, and processing my day. After about fifteen minutes, I got a text from Justin that said “Let’s talk about today. Meet me at the Starbucks at 43rd and 9th?”. My heart leapt, but then quickly sank, because that message sounded like I was in for a “Hey, you did great today/Keep up the good work/Maybe next time” sort of talk. So with my stomach in knots I walked past about eight Starbucks to get to Starbucks.

I walked in, saw Justin, headed toward him, and he stood up and said “I just wanted to tell you in person…” (oh crap, here we go) “…congratulations.” (wait… what?!). “Oh and by the way, they want you to start in six days.”

I can’t really articulate the emotions that were happening for the next few hours – ranging from elation, to anxiety about having to leave my current show, Seattle, and most importantly, my wife for the better part of seven months – but over the top of it all, was the realization that I had just booked the biggest job of my career so far. Luckily, the tour was able to wait one extra week, which gave me the time I needed to get all my stuff in order .

I got a chance to correspond with Jerry a little more after I had gotten the job, and he congratulated me and let me know that he indeed had put in the good word he said he would. This whole process, from summer to winter, really drove home for me that in this business (just like in most others) it’s about who you know, and more importantly, what kind of a reputation you have. There is so much luck and random circumstance that plays into casting, that the best thing you can do for yourself is to make sure everyone loves to work with you, and knows that you’ll do a good job. Most of the rest of the stuff you can’t control.

“So much is wonderful about this virtually flawless production that it is hard to know where to begin.”-- Audrey Gervasi, Seattle Examiner

“What Sher has accomplished is a revival that makes us feel like we're hearing this story for the first time, and from people who were there, whose lives were changed by the things that happened…. this was as good a production of this great musical as I'm likely to see for quite some time.”—Jerry Kraft, Seattle Actor

How I Got the Job - Part 1: The Real Auditionor "You Gotta Fight to be Legally Blonde"

My life changed at the Starbucks on 43rd and 9th in Manhattan... but that's jumping a little far ahead.

This past summer, I had the amazing privilege of spending most of the beautiful Seattle sunny days in basement rooms rehearsing Catch Me if You Can at The 5th Avenue. Spending two months working with some of the best in the business (on both sides of the table) was a dream come true and stands out as a highlight of my Seattle career.

Our choreographer for Catch Me was the brilliant Jerry Mitchell, one of the foremost Broadway choreographers today - who had recently made his Broadway directorial debut with Legally Blonde The Musical (he also did the choreography).

Jerry and I had a couple of talks over the summer about my career: about my "type," some advice, some ideas on projects and roles for which I should angle. In one of these talks, he mentioned that I could be a good fit for the national tour of Legally Blonde. I said "That would be awesome!" or something similarly ecstatic while trying to sound calm and cool.

Now, I was already determined to do a good job and make a good impression with "the New York folks" coming into Catch Me, so now with some extra motivation, well... needless to say, I worked my butt off. (Literally. I lost almost 10 pounds just doing Jerry's crazy-fast high-energy choreography.)

As any of you who saw Catch Me can probably imagine, we had a blast. The whole process was an amazing experience, and everyone's hard work and love paid off in many ways. For my part, Jerry and I talked a couple more times about New York and the future, and he referred me to the casting director for Legally Blonde (one Justin Huff). Through talking with the both of them, it became pretty clear that they were interested in looking at me for the show, and that I would get a call to come to NY to audition once the right spot opened up.